Thursday, October 25, 2007

Along comes this big beautiful cloud, at sunset, all warm and soft looking. The day is mild, the wind, low. As the dark part under the cloud reaches me; the wind becomes so strong I stagger against it and the temperature drops.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Three of the pieces that just went off to Toronto; from a series called Roots 'n' Berries, after a piece of music Grant composed. I borrowed sections from the score and incorporated those with patterns found on sea urchin shells and water droplets of windows. I was exploring the similarities in structure between the naturals patterns and music notes.

Oh, what a relief; after a few weeks spent traveling and a fews weeks spent moving I am finally online in the new house and all is well. I just sent four new paintings to Tatar Gallery in Toronto for their booth at the Toronto International Art Fair http://tiafair.com/.Its coming up soon; here is a detail of one piece, go see it if you can.

Yesterday, morning was gorgeous; this is the view from one of our upstairs windows.

Here are a few things I found at my folks place in Ontario. I took tons of pics of fungi and natural patterns while there; I wanted to share a few of those.Cute alert! This is Mars, the cutest little dog ever; and he knows it:)

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Back home in Pouch Cove now, after what felt like a very quick trip to Toronto and to my parents place in rural Ontario. I was shortlisted for the RBC painting competition and traveled to Toronto and Moncton, New Brunswick to attend receptions. It was a great trip; met a lot of wonderful people and had a bit of time to visit with friends in Toronto, there were many people I wanted to see but ran out of time. The other artists on the short list were a solid group of painters; I feel honored to have been included.While in Toronto I gave a talk to the Painting thesis students at OCAD; I was nervous but I think it went okay. One student asked me what piece of advice I would give to those about to graduate and I think I said something like keep painting as your priority if you are really serious about it because "life" will always try to get in the way. What I should have also said was: to find inspiration in your other passions in life, sounds like common sense but, as an artist one often struggles with 'what do i paint?'. After school is done and a few years go by it is sometimes hard to figure that out; I have struggled with that question myself at times. The way out for me was to look closely at the things that I love and incorporate that into my work. Its those things that you will find in these pages.

This tree in Moncton had many varieties of lichen happily co-existing and looking gorgeous in their subtle colours.

Moncton has this huge pink silty river running through it that fascinates me; the locals I spoke with thought it was just a big muddy river, but I loved watching the patterns on the surface of the water as the tide coming in collided with the flow of the river.I had an afternoon before my flight home so I went to Kouchibouguac National Park; gorgeous warm day, wide sand beaches, and almost no one there but me! It was pretty perfect.

Here is my flight out of Moncton at sunset, that is the river I was walking along.

About Me

I live and work in the Junction Triangle
in Toronto with my partner and our two tabbies in a commercial style loft. I grow
experimental plants without
pots to explore the components of life first hand and post about it on myblog. My artwork can be found at aleksrdest.com Please contact me
if you would like to arrange to view my work in person. I love meeting people
interested in my work.

Commissions

I have worked with designers,
art consultants, and individuals to create custom artwork for a variety of
public and private spaces. I enjoy the collaborative process. If you have a
vision or a desire; and you think my style would complete it, get in touch.